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Chestnut Chum Revisioned as the Lynx
The Chestnut Chum canoe is one of the classic canoes when you ask about old canvas and wood canoes. Paddlers respected it for it’s ability to carry lots of gear and still remain stable. The Chum struck a chord with canoeists looking for day tripping boat as well as an extended trips. Several years ago, I worked with a paddler who wanted to build the Omer Stringer version of the canoe. According to Wooden Canoe Issue 25, the differences were this: Omer’s canoe is also unique. He began with a 15-foot Chestnut Chum, built in New Brunswick. When it was under construction, he asked that the cedar plank-and-rib shell be left…
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Free Kayak Plans and Free Canoe Plans
For years, PaddlingLight has been giving away the free drawings of historic and recent canoe and kayak, but I didn’t know how many plans people were downloading. In the last year I decided to start tracking just a few of the downloads to get a grasp on how many were actually being downloaded. I picked 5 of the 35 free drawings that I offer: a popular historic kayak design that has been built many times, a history canoe that has been built many times (most often in Italy), a canoe that looks interesting but hasn’t been built often (if at all), an original yost-style, skin-on-frame kayak and another historic kayak…
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Free Canoe Plans and Free Kayak Plans Update
One of the main (many) purposes for PaddlingLight has been to store a number of canoe plans and kayak plans. Most of the plans are free, but a few, my designs, are for sale. The revenue that I get from sales doesn’t add up to much. Last year, it was just enough to pay off old prototypes and make a new canoe prototype that I’ll test in 2012. The hardest part for me is figuring out how to make money or, at least, continue to make enough money to fund building more of these boats in the future and make it feel like my time isn’t wasted modeling these boats…
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Builders Photos of the 1910 St. Francis Canoe
The 1910 St. Francis Canoe in Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America is one of the Free Canoe Plans that I offer. It’s also one of the most graceful canoes in Bark and Skin. It’s high ends and sweeping sheerlines lead the eyes from tip to tail without interruption. The canoe measures just over 15 feet and its 36 inch width makes for a stable ride. It’s appearance is more modern than many of the other canoes in Bark and Skin, and it’s easy to imagine that this could be commercially manufactured today. It’s not surprising that builder’s flock to this design. 1910 St. Francis Skin-on-Frame Canoe Builder:…
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Printed Canoe Plans and Kayak Plans Plus Electronic Nestings
PaddlingLight offers a significant number of historic canoe and kayak plans and several original designs. In the past, those free kayak plans and free canoe plans came as a drawing on one sheet of paper. The plans showed the stations at 1-foot intervals with the stems drawn over the station. Only my commercial plans and a few were available with nestings. I’ve decided to start offering nestings for all the plans. I’m also offering a new service. I’m printing the nesting and stem and station plans on 24- by 36-inch paper. These two new services come with a fee. While I’ve made these plans available without expecting to make any…
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Free Canoe Plans: Beothuk Canoe
The Beothuk Canoe appears as Figure 87 in the Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. It differs from every other canoe in that book, and no actual physical model existed when Adney surveyed the canoes. He based the drawing on historic and sometime conflicting descriptions, and a birch-bark canoe toy found in the grave of a Beothuk boy. Chapelle notes that when turned upside down the canoe makes a shelter with a 3-foot head clearance. The canoe can also heel over on the water further than other canoes. Chapelle speculates that the canoes were designed for open-water navigation. Although it may seem like an April Fools’ Day joke,…
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Free Plans – Coast Salish Style Canoe
The Coast Salish Style Canoe appears on page eight of Leslie Lincoln’s Coast Salish Canoes. Lincoln writes that it’s the classic style and is housed at the Vancouver Centennial Museum, Vancouver, B.C. The boat measures over 27 feet making it as long as most voyager canoes. Lincoln also notes that the Coast Salish style canoes evolved for use in inland seas. This canoe features an interesting flare along the sheerline. The design works to keep the craft from shipping waves while maintaining a narrow hull for speed. It’s reflected in the bow; where, as Lincoln notes, the upper edge flares to keep out waves, but the lower, narrower section cuts…
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Free Plans: 1910 St Francis Canoe
The St. Francis Canoe of About 1910 appears as Figure 81 in the Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. Howard I. Chapelle notes that the canoe features a narrow, rockered bottom, and he notes that the model was popular with guides and sportsmen for forest travel. The almost vertical to slightly flared sides resemble a more modern canoe than some of the other free plans that I posted. Chapelle writes that some of the St. Francis canoes had midship tumblehome like the Malecite canoes, but that those were not marketed to sportsmen. As my Winter Free Canoe and Kayak Plan project draws to an end, I feel like…
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Free Canoe Plan: Têtes de Boule Hunting Canoe
This is the third and last Têtes de Boule canoe that appears in Edwin Tappan Adney’s and Howard I. Chapelle’s The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. Its 11-foot length falls between the other two and seems to combine attributes of a modern-style solo tripping boat and a pack canoe. At the 6-inch waterline, the canoe displaces 360 lbs, which means a boat built to 40 lbs can carry 320 lbs. and still have 6 inches of freeboard. Like the other Têtes de Boule canoes, this one has high ends, a flat bottom and rocker that rises near the ends. The ends are narrow, but slightly less so…
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Free Canoe and Kayak Plan Project
If you’re a loyal reader of PaddlingLight, you know that I’ve been modeling old canoes and kayaks from sources like The Bark Canoes and Skin Boat of North America and turning them into free plans. I’m almost three months into the project, which started on October 8th. So far, I’ve modeled 12 free plans during the project and with the holiday crunch I need a week off — that’s why you’re seeing this post instead of a new plan this week. The process for modeling one of these boats is lengthy. I put in a couple of hours on each boat with some taking longer than others — surprisingly, because…
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Hudson’s Bay Company North Canoe Plans
The voyagers of the Hudson’s Bay Company needed big canoes to transport trade goods into the American interior. The 30-foot Hudson’s Bay Company 4-1/2-Fathom North Canoe fit the bill. This 59-inch-wide canoe typically transported five bales of general trade good, one bale and two rolls of tobacco, one bale of kettles, one case of guns, one case of hardware, two bags of lead shot, one bag of flour, one keg of sugar, two kegs of gunpowder and 10 kegs of wine. In addition to the trade goods, each member of the crew brought one bale of private property, one bag of corn, a partial keg of grease, bedrolls and canoe…
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Free Canoe Plan: 1898 Passamaquoddy Ocean Canoe
The 1898 Passamaquoody Decorated Ocean Canoe comes from page 82, Figure 74 of Edwin Adney and Howard Chapelle’s The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. The text notes that this is the last known canoe of this style built. Tomah Joseph of Princeton, Maine built the canoe based on a cedar and canvas porpoise-hunting canoe. It has similar pinched ends and rounded tumblehome as the Modern Malecite St. John River Canoe. [half column title=”The Stats”] Length over all: 17ft 4in Design beam: 36in Design draft: 0.436in Displacement: 510lb Length of waterline: 15.8ft Wetted surface area: 29.5ft^2 Optimum capacity: 300-800lb Pounds to immerse an inch: 145lb [/half column] [half…